


achilles come down

by karennninas



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Dilaudid, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Episode: s02e15 Revelations, Friendship, Gen, I rly like the idea of them walking the line of platonic in the early yrs bc it layers their History, Male-Female Friendship, but it is still, literally idek why I did this I was in the bath, they are Platonic friends it's just an intense time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:53:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24013141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karennninas/pseuds/karennninas
Summary: like mid-late s2love is weird and uncomfortable. it's still love and it's still the only thing worth living for.excerpts from the brink of recovery
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Spencer Reid
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i have like a lot of thoughts and feelings abt reids addiction and recovery process & also the way that it sets up his and jjs relationship (friendship u get it) for the rest of the series or whateva 
> 
> this is short but theres a lot of feeling packed into it yk

“You’re high.” 

“What? No. Why would you say that?” Right on schedule. Euphoria melts into shame. 

“You’re calling me past three in the morning, Spencer. Don’t insult my intelligence. You’re high.” Her voice is tired. Hurting. Resigned. Somehow her disappointment and grief radiates from the speaker of his phone and it is more painful than anything he would like to feel. 

“I—”

“I’m coming over. But never again. This is it.” 

She hangs up the phone and ends the conversation she’s had every week for months. The exact same conversation. She always comes over, though. Every time. They both know she always will. Fifteen minutes later, when she knocks on his apartment door, the hostility from the phone is gone. He falls into her arms the second she steps inside. 

“You don’t have to—”

“I really _am_ sorry.” His voice is mostly absorbed by her hair and her scarf and shoulder, but she feels it. It’s impossible to doubt him. He’s still shrinking into her arms, holding onto her torso like he’d never been hugged before in his life. Remorseful. High. 

“Let’s go lay down,” she say gently, quietly, and staring into the empty apartment. “Come on.” She takes his hand, breaks the embrace, and leads him out of the doorway. He leans on her as they walk, and she tries not to dwell on the fact that he probably can’t tell how lopsided his posture is or how heavily he’s pulling her arm. Again, gently and quietly: “There’s Narcan in the bathroom?” 

He only nods. “If I… again— tonight…” The sentence is so shrouded in complete, _pathetic_ shame that it barely forms. Still, every time, the desire outmatches regret. “Please?” 

So, so, so tired: “Just tell me, so I can keep track.” She’s pressing a kiss to the side of his head and sitting the both of them down on his bed. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” The silent qualification to that being, _if_ she can bring herself to it. 

Before any of it started, she would have hoped she’d be stronger about it, more authoritative. She’d turn him around, force him into treatment, tell everyone who would do anything about it. She could make it all stop.

Reality is _so_ much harder. When he calls her at three, four in the morning, murmuring how much he loves her, how bad it hurts to close his eyes at night, begging her to come over, to just be with him, let him feel something (anything) good, to please, “ _please, Jennifer, please, just tonight, not tomorrow, just tonight._ ” 

Reality makes it so hard to be angry. So hard to be anything. Except present. 

The lights are off and he’s next to her, back against the headboard, and she pretends to ignore the sound of something tying around his arm and unmistakable metallic scratching, _ting!_ -ing, sharp inhalation of breath. She’s just there when he sinks down into the bed. She’s there to pull a syringe from a limp hand, turn him onto his left side, and lay wide awake with her forehead pressed against his. 

His voice is based in an entirely different reality. “Is this what unconditional love feels like?” 

She doesn’t answer him. She just strokes his cheek and eyes the bathroom, visualizing over and over the most efficient sprint to the cabinet and back to the bed, deciding whether to call 911 and ruin his life or trust Narcan and save his job, and listing the songs that keep time for CPR. Unconditional love. 

He murmurs to her again, eyes shut and breath so warm against her face. “I’ve never been so happy.” It sounds so much less apologetic than it really is. She knows that he’s pleading with her; he wants _so badly_ not to feel _so so good_. And he kisses her but it isn’t romantic. It’s barely even sexual. It’s only a physical expression of this desperate feeling: a paralyzed brain begging _please please forgive me_. She kisses him back because it’s late and he’s high. And, because she does. 

She wakes up after sleeping two hours, but she doesn’t move. She keeps him in her arms, feeling every breath he takes, until he wakes up much, much later. The first time he stirs, she slips out of the bed and gathers every piece of illegal paraphernalia that she can find into a drawer on the other side of the room. 

“Jay?” 

She looks at him, and she looks at the streaks of dried blood leading back from the track marks on his arm. Open wounds. Festering. She resolves herself and sits on the edge of the bed. “That’s it, Spencer. Do you understand?” She pauses for him to prop himself up to see her, and continues. “You’re going to die if this isn’t it. You’re going to die.” 

He doesn’t respond. Then, he nods. The light from the morning sun shows just how sunken his eyes are. How skinny his arms, torso, and legs have become. He looks so much older, but it’s been less than a year. His face is a picture of weathered, experienced despair. 

“I’m gonna tell them to start drug-testing you. I’ll give you a month. I’ll take you into treatment myself. I’m not gonna keep looking the other way.” She looks as tired and distraught as he does. “I can’t go another night—” she takes a deliberate breath and he feels something break in his chest— “counting the seconds _every time_ you take a breath.”

There are so many minutes of the heaviest silence either of them has ever felt. 

“I’m scared that I can’t.” 


	2. loathe the way they light candles in rome, but love the sweet air of the votives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Tell him I'm off it." 
> 
> "I will, but you're not."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i already had this done so like why not post it idk 
> 
> pls lmk if u also just rly resonate w this weird intense energy bc it's something i feel v strongly abt

“Are we gonna talk about your blood work?” 

They’re sitting in his apartment, on his bed, across from each other. Like kids. They should still be kids— they were _just_ kids. Baby-faced, wide-eyed. Now, they just look tired. He looks more tired than he’s ever been in his life. 

“The only person who should’ve seen that is—”

“You and I both know that Hotch can’t talk to you about this. You’ll lose your job.” She reaches forward and takes his hand. “It’s been two weeks and I haven’t seen you sweat or shake or show a _single_ sign of withdrawal.” She doesn’t break eye contact, and she doesn’t let go of his hand.

He doesn't (cannot, will not) react. “Tell him that I’m off it.” 

Her bottom lip twitches, but she's a picture of composure. A saint with kind, understanding eyes that pack a harder punch than any cruelty could. “I will. But you’re not.” 

He takes a deep breath in, and in the exhale some expression of indiscernible pain and suffering flickers across his face and disappears completely. He breaks away from her gaze and stares at the space of blanket between them. Softly, radiating guilt and shame and everything she never even thought he’d have to feel: “ _Please_ don’t ask me about this.” He clears his throat and looks up at her.Louder, more confident, “Everything is under control.” He knows she won’t tell on him because he knows she feels responsible for it in the first place. He also knows that he’s a _complete_ ass for taking advantage of her guilt. She won’t let go of his hand. 

\- 

He’d spent the entire plane ride from Atlanta in complete silence. Not sleeping, just… staring. He sat next to her the whole time— or really, she sat next to him and didn’t move for as long as he didn’t. They all saw the track marks, which were less “marks” and more “tiny, open, infected scabs.” He was covered in marks and bruises, each giving life to a different horrific detail of the past few days that nobody wanted to imagine. The part that had been caught on tape was only fraction of what had happened, and they all knew it. 

All of them went with him to the hospital. Four of them saw him inexplicably burst into tears during a completely non-invasive physical exam. They also watched the phlebotomist puncture his arm right next to the six distinct scars without blinking. Spencer never made eye contact with anyone. 

In the waiting room, a very forced and strangled voice: “Are they gonna check for… _sexual_ … trauma?” It was Emily, posing a nauseating question that nobody really wanted to answer. 

“I don’t really think the Evangelical would’ve been into that,” Morgan said flatly. 

“I mean…” JJ spoke like she wanted to erase the words as she was saying them, “ I don’t- we shouldn’t _completely_ assume anything.” A sharp frown was etched into her face and showed no signs of fading anytime soon. They sat in silence for several minutes, letting _that_ sink in, before Emily silently got up to find the nurse. 

Spencer exited the hospital room in his own clothes after several more hours, escorted by J, and was greeted by loaded, anticipatory silence. 

“I would like to personally thank whoever had the _brilliant_ idea to get my butt examined.” If he hadn’t looked like he’d just been beaten to death, it would have been very funny.“I’m serious. That was a really cool thing to do, for a friend. Nothing makes your day like a complete stranger staring you right in the asshole.” JJ reached up and ruffled his hair. 

“Sorry for caring,” she said through a very, very pained grin. He nodded his head. 

“Let’s get you home,” a soft voice in the group decided. 

She went home with him, obviously. He barely even fought her on it. He didn’t want to be alone. 

She stood quietly, awkwardly, while he unlocked the front door with shaking hands that they both pretended not to notice. She knows that for the rest of the night, _that_ — pretending not to notice— is going to be the greatest kindness to him she can give. 

He clears his throat, gestures for her to enter before him, feigning, wishing for any kind of social normalcy. She obliges. When they’re inside, she takes initiative, turns to look him in the eye and takes his hand.

“I’m gonna figure out something for us to eat— Spence, please tell me you have food here,” she adds after glancing at the ‘kitchen’ area. 

He does a surprisingly good job at returning her smile. “I think there might be cereal? I have coffee, for sure.” He lets her sway forward and press her forehead against his chest, holding onto both his hands at his sides. It’s nice, in this instant, to feel loved. 

She keeps the light, bantering tone despite their completely contradictory body language. “God, that’s why you’re so damn skinny.” She forces a laugh that comes out as more of a strong exhale. He appreciates it. 

After a minute— a really, really nice minute— he takes a step back and acknowledges the gnawing feeling in the back of his mind. The one that’s been reverberating through his entire body for hours, chipping away at every feeling, every thought that could serve as a distraction. 

“I think I’m gonna head to the bathroom, splash water on my face and change my shirt, and stuff… you can go through the place, take anything you want,” he gestures to the cabinets that might hold food, and disappears into the back of the apartment. 

At this point, just this one, she doesn’t know that he’s using. She doesn’t know that while she occupies herself looking in the fridge, taking inventory of paper towels and silverware, that he’s trying not to make noise sinking to the bathroom floor because his knees are buckling, his spine is slackening, for the first time in days he feels _so so good._

Later, the same night, just by a few hours, she sees. She’ll be sitting on his bed, mindlessly looking over the book he’d just left, and she’ll hear the choked sigh that escapes his throat, followed by the soft _thump_ when he loses his balance and his back hits the wall, and the door will swing open just by a few inches, and she’ll get up to check on him, and she’ll see. Her heart will drop to her stomach, but he’ll barely even register her presence, and she’ll try to pull him to his feet but all the strength in her body will be gone and she’ll collapse right next to him, up against him, with his arm around her, and his head, heavy on his own shoulders, slumped against hers. They’ll sit there till he’s aware enough to press his mouth to the top of her head and pick himself up, and then she’ll stand up with him, and they won’t talk about it. He’ll hug her, packing an apology and a plea for mercy into one weak gesture, and they’ll walk back to the bed and lay down together. She’ll know that it’s a night they’re never going to address.

The morning is weird, but not in a way that makes either of them uncomfortable with the other. It feels less like she caught him doing something, and more like the two of them went through it together. Like it made them closer in some sick, sad way. 

She wakes up completely entwined with him. (Fully clothed). Just holding him, cradling his head, with his arms loose around her waist. It’s so nice for the moment, but she gets up. If he wakes up embarrassed, he’ll shut her out completely and she knows it. 

She’s changing from his pajamas into her clothes when she thinks again, _if he wakes up_ , and she rushes back to the bed to check for his breath (it’s there). 

Softly, close enough to his face that he can hear but not so close that it’ll scare him: “Spencer?” 

Bloodshot, sunken eyes slowly look up at her, and, unable to produce any voice that isn’t pathetically broken and raspy, he raises his eyebrows to indicate a response. 

“Do you want me to stay?” 

He shakes his head. 

“Okay. I’m going to work, then, but I’m gonna bring you dinner.” 

He shakes his head again in protest—

“I _am_. I’ll be back tonight.” 

When she leaves, he’s wondering what she’ll tell the others when they ask how he is. When they ask what happened last night. She’ll lie, she has to; she wouldn’t without telling him first. He wonders if she’ll ask him about it when she comes back. 

She doesn’t.

(She can’t).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u are confused abt the sequence of events: ch1 was set like several months post-s2e15, the beginning part of ch2 is like 2 weeks post & the rest of ch2 is immediately post. jsyk. 
> 
> uhhh,mmmm yea so def make yrself known if ur also vibing w this concept bc it's smth ive been thinking abt for a while now and im just kinda throwing it into the void 
> 
> :)

**Author's Note:**

> that was short as shit but lmk if u wanna hear more of that bc like. im just posting this bc i felt v intensely abt it when i was writing it hnjfhjdh but i have a strong inclination to make it part of like a bigger multi chapter type of thing. idk


End file.
